Network Working Group R. Fink
Request for Comments: 3701 R. Hinden
Obsoletes: 2471 March 2004
Category: Informational
6bone (IPv6 Testing Address Allocation) Phaseout
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The 6bone was established in 1996 by the IETF as an IPv6 Testbed
network to enable various IPv6 testing as well as to assist in the
transitioning of IPv6 into the Internet. It operates under the IPv6
address allocation 3FFE::/16 from RFC 2471. As IPv6 is beginning its
production deployment it is appropriate to plan for the phaseout of
the 6bone. This document establishes a plan for a multi-year
phaseout of the 6bone and its address allocation on the assumption
that the IETF is the appropriate place to determine this.
This document obsoletes RFC 2471, "IPv6 Testing Address Allocation",
December, 1998. RFC 2471 will become historic.
1. Introduction
The 6bone IPv6 Testbed network was established in March 1996,
becoming operational during the summer of 1996 using an IPv6 testing
address allocation of 5F00::/8 [TEST-OLD] that used the original (and
now obsolete) provider based unicast address format. In July 1998, a
new IPv6 Addressing Architecture [ARCH] replaced the original
provider based unicast address format with the now standardized
Aggregatable Global Unicast Address Format [AGGR].
To allow the 6bone to operate under the revised IPv6 address
architecture with the new Aggregatable Global Unicast addressing
format, [TEST-OLD] was replaced with a new IPv6 testing address
Fink & Hinden Informational [Page 1]RFC 3701 6bone Phaseout Plan March 2004
allocation" of 3FFE::/16 in [TEST-NEW]. During the fall of 1998, in
anticipation of [AGGR], the 6bone was re-addressed under the
3FFE::/16 prefix with little problems.
From the fall of 1998, until the issuance of this note, the 6bone has
continued to successfully operate with Aggregatable Global Unicast
Address prefixes from the 3FFE::/16 allocation, using a set of 6bone
routing practice rules specified in [GUIDE], and later refined to
6Bone backbone routing guidelines in [PRACTICE].
During its lifetime the 6bone has provided:
- a place for early standard developers and implementers to test
out the IPv6 protocols and their implementations;
- a place for early experimentation with routing and operational
procedures;
- a place to evolve practices useful for production IPv6 prefix
allocation;
- a place to provide bootstrap qualification for production IPv6
address prefix allocation;
- a place to develop IPv6 applications;
- a place for early users to try using IPv6 in their hosts and
networks.
As clearly stated in [TEST-NEW], the addresses for the 6bone are
temporary and will be reclaimed in the future. It further states
that all users of these addresses (within the 3FFE::/16 prefix) will
be required to renumber at some time in the future.
Since 1999 planning for, and allocation of, IPv6 production address
prefixes by the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) community has been
underway. During 2002 more production IPv6 address prefixes had been
allocated than are allocated by the 6bone at the top level. It is
generally assumed that this is one reasonable indicator that planning
for a 6bone phaseout should begin.
It is generally assumed that there is still some remaining need for
the 6bone, at least for current usage that will take time to evaluate
and possibly move to production IPv6 networks when possible.
It is generally viewed that the 6bone is an IETF activity as it was
established by IETF participants to assist the IETF in developing
IPv6 protocols, and also to assist in the IPv6 transition. To this
Fink & Hinden Informational [Page 2]RFC 3701 6bone Phaseout Plan March 2004
end, the [TEST-NEW] RFC specified that the 6bone testing was to be
under the auspices of the IETF IPng Transition (ngtrans) Working
Group 6bone testbed activity. However, during 2002 the ngtrans
working group was terminated and replaced to a certain degree by the
v6ops working group, which did not include oversight of the 6bone in
its charter. Therefore it is assumed that it is appropriate to use
the IETF Informational RFC process to determine a 6bone phaseout
plan, as well as an appropriate way to get community feedback on the